Web Developer/Designer for Small Non-Profit Organization | Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding

Overview
The Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding is a small non-profit organization seeking to enhance its online presence.

At present, we are seeking a web design and development consultant/firm to create a new website that aligns with current organizational branding guidelines, allows simple updating through an easy to use CMS/WYSIWYG, has some built in social media/networking functions (e.g., a blog and forums), includes several password-protected sections and will scale with the organization through the next 3-5 years.

We would prefer that the site be built on Drupal or Wordpress but are open to proposals from developers working with Moveable Type or Ruby on Rails.

About the Organization
Tanenbaum, a secular, non-sectarian organization, works to prevent the ignorance, hatred and violence perpetrated in the name of religion. We recognize the powerful force religion has in society, and create tools and educational programs to help people work through religious differences effectively and respectfully. While we acknowledge the importance of dialogue, our focus is on developing real-world resources that are immediately applicable in peoples’ daily lives.

We work in five related but distinct program areas, each with its own audience:

• Religion and Diversity Education: Training, curricula and guides enable educators to help students approach “the other” with respectful curiosity. Rigorous curricula spanning grades
K-12 embed lessons on diversity and religious identity with academically-integrated materials. Constituents include educators from K through college, after-school program educators and coordinators and students of multicultural education.

• Religious Diversity in the Workplace: A multi-pronged approach – training, consulting, creating resources, and reviewing corporate policies – changes the way organizations approach religious diversity at work, infusing inclusion and respect from the C-suite to the mail room. Constituents include Chief Diversity and Inclusion officers of Fortune 500 corporations and diversity and human resource practitioners.

• Religious Diversity in Health Care: Training, resources and tools give practitioners the support they need to understand this vital component of patients’ identities, thus building stronger doctor-patient relationships, improved compliance and better health outcomes. Constituents include health care providers at all levels (physicians, nurses, aides, etc), allied health professionals (e.g., physical and occupational therapists), medical educators, pastoral care professionals and health care administrators.

• Religion and Conflict Resolution: Religion is powerful instrument for peacebuilding. By identifying, studying and promoting the work of religiously motivated peacemakers worldwide, we show the world that there is another way – and that religious peacemakers have real, replicable methods that can help us create sustainable peace. Constituents include conflict resolution students and practitioners, diplomats and seminary students.

• Exploring the Religious Roots of Prejudice: Coexistence without understanding those with whom we are coexisting is impossible. We study how religions teach and talk about one another in order to untangle the historical prejudices that have made coexistence such a challenge. This is the smallest of all Tanenbaum programs. Constituents are mainly scholars.

Our Current Website & Look
Tanenbaum.org currently has approximately 130 pages, plus another 50 pages for members-only sections. Each of the programs has a “hub” with links to all related information; there are also “about us,” “resources,” “events,” “our storefront” and “donation” sections. Our blog is hosted externally on the hosted version of Wordpress. Main navigation is via a drop-down navigation bar and breadcrumbs on each page.

Each program section has 8-12 “base” pages. Some programs have substantially more on top of that base (e.g., the Religion and Conflict Resolution section has a page for each of its 24 Peacemakers, adding another 24 pages to that section).

Overall, the current site has 3-4 templates from which new pages are constructed.

Tanenbaum underwent a re-branding process in 2006, leading to a new logo, tagline (seen above) and overall look. Since then, materials have been designed according to the resultant style guide, and new materials have added to our pool of graphic design options.

Our Goals
Tanenbaum would like to leverage its web presence to increase brand awareness, drive business to the organization and create communities of practice around each of its constituent areas. Because we work is such wide-ranging program areas, we need to attract and provide resources for a variety of audiences using a variety of messaging. We also need a website that is easily managed by staff with little or no technical background, and one which will be scalable as the organization continues to grow.

Overall, we require a site that aligns with current Tanenbaum branding and collateral materials, and that visually communicates Tanenbaum’s core messages (i.e., innovative, concrete, bold, groundbreaking). The new site would need to be consistent with these new branding and design elements, and maintain and extend our current brand direction.

Additional goals would be defined in conjunction with the Assistant Communications Director, Creative Brand Manager and Marketing/Social Media Consultant.

Goals include:

• Help Tanenbaum prioritize the core functionalities needed and anticipate future modules/functions that should be built in.

• Create a site that gives the organization room to grow in both content and function.

• Assist Tanenbaum in re-thinking the way information is organized on the site and restructure our information architecture.

• Maintain the amount and quality of content currently on the site while reducing the page count and focusing the information more intuitively.

• Integrate social networking elements currently absent from the site or provided through third party solutions (e.g., a blog or forums) that allow Tanenbaum to form communities of like-minded constituents in each program areas.

• Create members-only sections with tools and resources that require (1) registration;
(2) provision of information or (3) payment. Several programs have online resources that require sign-in to access, while others are contemplating members-only sections where constituents can gather to talk, share information and access restricted information.

Many of these restricted pages share a common structure, so specialized design will not be necessary. We estimate that 4-6 template pages will be necessary to construct them.

• Integrate e-commerce into the site, including the ability to donate:
o In someone’s honor
o On a recurring basis
o For an event
o Anonymously

Donation pages should provide an engaging and inspiring experience for the donor.

• Create an intuitive WYSIWYG interface that gives staff the ability to update the site quickly and easily, including editing text, images, adding/deleting items for sale and blogging without technical knowledge.

Our Challenges
We are a small organization with limited fiscal and human resources. Website maintenance is handled by our Communications team, who have experience in using WYSIWYG-based tools and many social media/networking tools, but who would be unable to maintain a site that requiring hand-coding.

In addition, a small staff means we have limited time to dedicate to the upkeep required to use many social networking tools successfully; we will need to carefully consider which tools we will use and how, and have clear assignments for staff.

Request for Proposal
Please submit a proposal that includes:

• An overview of your proposed project
• A description of your methodology
• An outline of the site your propose, indicating TBD elements
• An estimated timeline
• A line-item budget for
o Site design
o Development
o Implementation
o Testing
o Assistance with launch
o Training Tanenbaum staff to maintain
• Links to other projects that represent your work

Proposals will be accepted until September 3, 2009. Please send your proposal to mweber@tanenbaum.org and copy melea@meleaseward.com.